Show 0 m b 0 a k 44 Q laa a is a R a ill to 6 M i 6 a preparing frog legs leg for epicures Epi cures Frer ared by national soc washington D C service once famous only for ahelf frake hind legs lees but whose skins now make book covers and fine glue annually add more than to the industrial census figures of louisiana frog raising anil and the col clestion of frogs from streams ponds and swamps are therefore becoming important activities it requires from four to five years for the frog whose legs are edible to reach adult size when the warm cpr spring I 1 n g sun tempers the water in our ponds it Is mating time for frogs A female frog may lay as many as eggs the eggs are deposited in small masses on water plants or on sticks or leaves lying in sli shallow allow water an egg consists of the yolk the round black center and the en elope the surrounding transparent membrane which begins to absorb water as soon as the egg Is laid and thus immediately swells to be several times its original size but already danger besets the germ of life growing there A gray fungus or mold may penetrate the envelope sprout upon the yolk and thus cut off the life of the little frog before it has well begun but if fate Is kind and ca conditions are favorable the central yolk at first a single cell be begins ins at once to grow dividing into two cells these into four these into eight and so on in the typical way under favorable conditions the tadpole hatches on the fourth day at first it Is a minute flattened yellowish object with conspicuous us branching filaments its gills at one end and a coarse appendage the tall at the other the little creature at this stage can barely wriggle away from its castoff cast off oft envelope to squirm upward to the surface of the water where it instinctively seeks the shelter of foliage and of the shallow water for at this age it easily becomes the prey of small fish and other ever hungry enemies development of tadpole in a few days when its mouth parts have begun to develop it nibbles the scum of green algae which forms a dense mat over every submerged stone or pe pebble abble in the stagnant pond the mouth ot of the tadpole Is not at all like that of the adult frog A sharply hooked beak suggesting that of a parrot but almost microscopic in size adorns the front of the tadpoles head and Is useful as a means of scraping and tearing at the minute water plants and animals which it takes for food at this stage tadpoles are scavengers and fortunate are they to find the crumbs that fall from the rich mans table tn in the form of fragments of fish or other food left by larger and more careless banque in natures storehouse this rich fare fattens the tadpoles body to ridiculous rotundity ills his tiny lidless eyes stare solemnly upward at the water surface to which he must now rush every few moments for a of air as his gills are beginning to be absorbed and he be has hag had since to depend largely on his two nostrils equipped with valves to keep them closed and watertight water tight during his submarine augmented by a or breathing pore on tile the left side of his body nis his tall tail has developed to a thing of surprising strength and pliability for on its power alone his safety depends in the increasingly bitter struggle to escape his countless enemies before the tadpole Is many weeks old a pair of growths sprouts near the base of the tall and shortly these elongate into a pair of hind legs equipped with five toes which closely resemble those of the adult at this stage a marvelous power of regeneration may take place for it if a too toe or even a leg Is nipped off another one will grow in the place an exact duplicate of the one lost after metamorphosis Is complete this regenerative power ceases to function anil and a limb once lost Is 1 not re grown comes come out of the water some days after the legs appear the right arm comes out now the little tadpole stays near tile the top of the water nearly all the time and seems arf acry uncomfortable and no wonder ills ill left arm Is developing just where the breathing pore is located As won boon as 11 1 it bursts through his troubles are lessened for now he can hop out on the bank tn in true frog fashion and breathe the air freely for as we have seen his nostrils have been functioning tor for some time as air breathing organs with the formation of his legs his head structure has likewise changed the scraping black beak gave place to the wide mouth characteristic of the adult frog the staring eyes acquired lids and nictitating membrane a tympanum appeared a definite color pattern showed on the skin and some glandular cells arranged themselves in characteristic roughened areas all over the back only the tall remains to tell of his former aquatic habits day by day it too Is absorbed into the body lust just as were the gills in the very early stages j until at last our little frog Is completely metamorphosed and can go freely on shore with his brothers to catch lies flies among the plants bordering his ancestral pool it Is now the end of july a and nd for the next two or three months his only occupation Is eating and preventing himself from being eaten enough to keep him busy and on the alert every instant at the approach of the sharp autumn weather he Is about halt half an inch in length and half balf grown while he has no voice as yet tile the mating call of 0 his elders may occasionally be heard beard in the pool as late as september for frogs are active over a long period of the year and the breeding season may be said to last from april to september reaching a peak at several different times as warm weather and heavy rainfall favor it at the onset of winter everything Is silent but with sleep not death near the borders of the pond burled buried under logs and stones in the mud the little frogs have begun hibernation for the winter A wise provision of nature slows down their life processes to suit them to this complete inactivity and apparent inanition many species are known while there are about two thousand species of tailless amphibians we lack a corresponding number of common names for them we must perforce call everything by the name of frog or toad although the several families grouped together as toads for instance may be as different structurally and in habits from the true toad as the tha lion Is different from the camel although both are mammals while most tailless amphibians deposit their eggs in water mater with the tailed aquatic tadpole stage intervening between egg and adult there Is one tropical american genus thero in which the young frog completes his metamorphosis entirely inside the egg capsule and when it la Is finally time for him to sally forth he comes out and hops away among the tree tops with no tall tail to impede him other tropical frogs lay their eggs in the rain filled axils aeils of glint giant palm leaves perhaps a hundred feet high in the air here it Is truly a case 0 of rock a bye baby on the tree top to the little frog baby in his wind rocked cradle of rainwater he may haie hae strange bedfellows bed fellows such a bromeliad bro mellad reservoir from jamaica yielded a young and tadpoles belonging to two species of frogs some small crabs grasshoppers arboreal cockroaches a tarantula and some earthworms which live high in the air in the quart or two of soil and water which collects in the junctions of leaves with stem showers of frogs and toads have been mentioned in the literature of very early times and while some of the tales are exaggerated we know that show ers of organic matter actually do occur when the entire contents c of a pond are sucked up by a whirlwind and dropped perhaps miles away from their point of origin peculiar superstitions exist about toads and frogs in many countries since most races of men observe closely only those creatures which are either directly useful to them or potentially injurious the majority of the amphibians escaped anything resembling close and protracted study until relatively recent years it was not until about two centuries ago that tile the facts of hibernation were definitely known to science before that time it was bellei belle led cd that frogs were abed from the mud an iden idea proposed by no loss less an observer than the illustrious aristotle himself |